Servant Leadership July 2018 Alumni Event

Servant Leadership July 2018 Alumni Event

A “community of servant leaders” alumni event is held quarterly, to provide a space for SL alumni to share stories, socialize and in the process continue to nurture understanding and community amongst each other. The 19th July, 2018 was one such evening complete with delicious food, drinks and fellowship. We also heard a powerful true-life story of Flor Romero. She and her family moved to Vista Hermosa when she was 10. She currently works for NELA, the elementary school at Vista Hermosa.

Flor shared about how she had to endure an abusive relationship as a child at the hands of her own family member. She spoke about the trauma and the sleepless nights even as she battled with several other factors that affected her normal growth as a child. She feels blessed to have had the opportunity to heal and grow at Vista Hermosa where she has studied and now teaches Servant Leadership and Trauma Informed Care. She has learned about the power of love and compassion in serving the vulnerable, while finding the capacity to forgive those who betray us. This year she made a trip on behalf of Vista Hermosa Foundation, to Mexico to present on trauma informed care at a conference which hosted attendees from all over Mexico. While in Mexico City, she had the opportunity to meet the person who had abused her, after some 20 years. She was able to say her truth while also extending forgiveness. She said that she felt free-liberated, after this incident.

I think the greatest quality one can have is the power of forgiveness. In our self-focused culture, we are always trying to move ahead through competition that keeps getting tougher. In the process, we forget and compromise on basic human relationships that are integral for our survival. We can find ourselves in a space where we feel more than self-sufficient, pretending that we don’t really need our family, neighbor and friends. It is then that the power of forgiveness must be experienced to be believed, as it can change lives that in turn, become able to re-weave broken lives and families in service of flourishing communities.